"Are These Robert Gates's Pants?"

In a new article today at American Thinker, graphic artist Mara Zebest -- who is identified as working "closely" with Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Cold Case Posse "in providing evidence on Obama's forged birth certificate" -- highlights some supposed anomalies in a Situation Room photo from the day of the bin Laden raid in order to prove... something.

The American Thinker, which regularly publishes embarrassing drivel like this, is viewed as credible by prominent conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, who has called it "one of my most favorite and thoughtful blogs," and Lou Dobbs, who has cited them on his Fox Business program.

The first mystery of this photo, per Zebest, concerns what may or may not be a pair of phantom pants under Obama's outstretched arms, and to whom they "would be attached." (Note: some of Zebest's images have been resized for this post.)

Zebest herself concludes the obvious: that the "pants" in question are actually not pants at all! Rather, they are fabric from Obama's jacket. Now, you might be asking yourself: "Why, if Zebest knew they weren't pants, did she speculate that they might be pants?" It's not clear, but see if you can follow her (generously defined) reasoning:

In all fairness, the initial impression leads the eye to believe that the beige fabric under the right armpit belongs to Robert Gates' pants (standing near Obama on the right). However, if that were the case, then who would be attached to the pant leg under the left armpit? It's not intuitively obvious, and it takes the viewer a little time to eventually come to a conclusion that these fabric strips are side panels built into the jacket design. Maybe the New York Times found the presence of this fabric an odd distraction as well -- and the reason behind their cropped version.

Ah-ha! Obama caught in the act of wearing a confusing pants-like jacket! Impeach?

If Obama was hoping to distract image detectives with trouser-esque outerwear, he underestimated Mara Zebest's preternatural ability to distinguish pants from other, non-pants articles of clothing.

Other highlights from Zebest's analysis: Obama has "an abrupt chunk" taken out of his ear!

Something about Robert Gates' "transparent eyes and hair"!

She saves her most embarrassing gaffe for last, wherein she attempts to point out a "few more problems" with a separate Situation Room photo and figure out why one top-secret document in the photo was blurred, "while the binder sitting on Hillary's lap is left untouched."*

Zebest ponders why, if the codename for the Bin Laden mission was "Geronimo," this document says "CODEWORD NOFORN." She floats as a possible explanation that this was "another disturbing attempt to casually release confidential information to our enemies." Unfortunately for Zebest, "NOFORN" is not actually a secret codeword: it means the document is "Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals."

As usual for Obama conspiracy theorists, this is both incredibly embarrassing and par for the course.

Zebest's article is a sequel of sorts to a piece she penned earlier this month also alleging that Obama had been photoshopped into a Situation Room photo from the day of the bin Laden raid. And, as noted above, Zebest has also applied her peculiar skill set to "proving" that Obama's long-form birth certificate is fraudulent.

On December 7, President-elect Donald Trump named Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as his pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Media should take note of Pruitt’s climate science denial, his deep ties to the energy industries he will be charged with regulating, and his long record of opposition to EPA efforts to reduce air and water pollution and combat climate change.

President-elect Donald Trump has picked -- or considered -- nearly a dozen people who have worked in right-wing media, including talk radio, right-wing news sites, Fox News, and conservative newspapers, to fill his administration. And Trump himself made weekly guest appearances on Fox for a number of years while his vice president used to host a conservative talk radio show.